Conifer Dada

We had Avatars United until it closed down. It worked well and had possibilities, but it seems that most SL residents, myself included, didn't really have any use for it, beyond the first flutter of interest. As for Twitter, although a lot of people use it anonymously, they're not really being 'virtual', as it were.

Yesterday I wandered up Highway 9 from my home and beside the road was a female avatar sitting cross-legged on the ground. I didn't think any more about it but today I went for a longer run up the same road and the woman was still there, sitting cross-legged on the ground. A few sims further up the road was another similar woman, also sitting cross-legged on the ground. Both had exactly the same appearances - with their normal 'skin' on their bodies but missing from their faces, replaced by default system skin, coloured dark brown. I looked at their profiles and although they obviously had different names, their details were much the same and so were their profile pictures and they both joined around the same time. I tried speaking to one of the avatars but I was not surprised that they didn't reply! I'm familiar with ghosted or frozen avatars - but two, obviously created by the same RL person, both trapped cross-legged beside the same highway, about 2 km apart - that seems odd.

I only use Facebook with my RL identity, I always assumed that's what it's for. But one thing puzzles me - how did they find all the SL users other than by going through peoples' accounts and checking photos and messages? I wonder how many genuine authentic real names have been cleared off FB by mistake just because their real name was something like Boffo Zootakins.

I sympathise with the original poster. I think if people stop paying their Premium, they should only lose the privileges they gained from being Premium, not everything. They should just revert, unceremoniously, to Basic. One way to safeguard your main avatar / resident is to keep them as Basic and have an 'administrative' alt with the Premium account, which can deal with land etc., leaving your main free of any money worries.

Just to say that my payment went through second attempt, so I deleted my post about being unable to pay!

My payment hasn't gone through and when I check payment method it says I don't have any method on file. I also get a message saying my bill hasn't been paid and I had an e-mail threatening to suspend my account if I don't pay in 7 days. There's nothing wrong with my track record, I've always paid my tier and I still could if the system would let me.

I don't have a child avatar myself, I've been 26 since I joined in 2006! But I think it would be a pity if there were no 'children' anywhere in SL, just like it would be a pity if there were no elderly avatars or no obese avatars . Obviously there are some places which are inappropriate for kids in SL, just as in real life, though.

I've been using the latest Beta Viewer 2.6.2...something!! Here are my impressions. Rezzing of surroundings seems quicker than in other recent versions but avatars still take a long time to rez. Shadows work better than last time I tried them, but they still cause some lag - but useful for SL photography, especially as snapshots now work properly with shadows. Two minor glitches, though. Shiny doesn't seem to work when shadows are enabled and avatar skirt shadows are full-length even if the skirt itself is short. I tried the avatar physics too. Being slim and athletic, I don't wobble a lot, but I managed to give myself just enough wobbles so I don't look like I'm made from hard plastic! It is possible to have extreme wobbling of breasts, tummy and bottom if you want to look like a walking marshmallow, though! So I give a 'yay' to the latest Beta viewer.:smileyvery-happy:

I'm using the latest 2.6 Beta Viewer and I got shadows to work the old way, by going into debug settings and then setting RenderuseFBO and RenderDeferred to true. The shadows seem to work better, with a bit less lag, than when I last tried them. A couple of small glitches though. 1)Although my avatar shadow is stable, if I wear a system skirt, the shadow always shows a full-length skirt even if I'm wearing a short one. 2)'Shiny' stopped working when I enabled shadows, even though I didn't change the graphics settings. In 2.6 Beta Viewer, snapshots work properly with shadows enabled. No need to 'print screen' and then paste, as before! This was taken in Damania, the perfect place to explore lighting effects:

From a creator's point of view - if you sell an item that is 'copy' and 'transfer', the purchaser can then sell copies of your creation in direct competition against you. So the 'no transfer' option should definitely be retained.

The thing with making your avatar into a 'brand' is that probably you'd be the only person to notice you'd done so. I started a sort of brand soon after I came to SL, called Egotherapy, really just as a bit of fun, although I did market a few things under the name. I even have outfit, a logo and a flag, all in the green, yellow and red of Egotherapy. But, as I say, it's just a bit of fun. I have never changed my looks in SL though, apart from tweaks to make the original look better. I do wear different clothes, of course, and sometimes I tie my hair back, sometimes it's loose - but all consistent. If there is a 'default' Conifer look, it has to be my blue, purple, turquoise and black patchwork leotard. The first one wore out so I made another and it's unique as I havent given any copies away or sold any.

There was an update yesterday and since I downloaded it I didn't crash. A few jittery momnets but no crash. So I'm hoping the problem is solved.

Thanks for all the replies. I see I'm not the only one with these difficulties. I wasn't one of those who condemned Viewer 2, one of its great advanatages was that it rarely crashed, which was an advance on what we had before. But all that is lost now on 2.5, which takes me back to how SL used to behave on our old computer in 2006 when I joined.

I just assume that SL feet and inches are slightly smaller than RL ones. I'm physically the same height in RL as SL, but that measures 5ft 6in in RL measurements and over 6ft in the smaller SL feet and inches.

I agree it would initially have an adverse effect on the economy of the malls associated with clubs that impose an ARC limit, but if those clubs are less laggy as a result there are still lots of people happy to get by with a lower ARC for most of the time. Some clubs impose no-fly zones or other restrictions and that dosen't seem to harm them. And some clubs ban giant avatars for obvious reasons, so an ARC limiting option would probably find some use. The problem I have with super-detailing of avatars is that by the time you get up close enough to see those details fully, you can also see all the imperfections in the mesh!

I did my own hair styles, mainly because I wanted them to be consistent with each other. I was at a club the other day and my avatar rendering cost was only 830, complete with my ponytail swishing about. My loose hair style does have more prims, but only about 40, I guess. At another club there was an avatar with an ARC of over 30,000 but their hair didn't look any more real than mine!

Recently I've been turning on the avatar rendering cost at clubs I visit. 'Perving' people's rendering costs is quite informative. Nearly all the ARC's are red. The highest I've seen was over 30,000. Mine was lowest, at 830 one day and a bit higher, but still under 1000, another time - and yet I don't feel aesthetically challenged! Is it possible for land owners to set a maximum rendering cost for individual avatars on their land? If not, it would be useful. If you tried to TP somewhere and your ARC was too high, you could get a message 'Avatar rendering cost too high, limit for location 10,000' or similar.

My crashes on viewer 2.5 seem to follow the same pattern. I teleport to a location. As everything is rezzing, the screen freezes and the sound stream goes silent for a few seconds. Then movement and sound return for a second or two, followed by sudden crash and viewer disappears. When I try to re-log, the first attempt always fails '(region has begun the log-out process' message) but the second attempt works. I don't remember Viewer 2.4 crashing at all - well, maybe once or twice, but I not that I can recall.

Thanks.:smileyhappy:

For me, Viewer 2 has been pretty stable up to and including 2.4. I hardly ever had any crashes. But Viewer 2.5 is crashing all the time - usually after teleporting somewhere - within a minute or so. It's almost like being in SL in 2006 when it kept crashing.

I made most of my clothes, it was a creative challenge that drove me. I have a few acquired items, e.g. jeans - the freebie ones I have do fine, so there was no point in going through the proceess of photographing some of my RL ordinary blue jeans and then trying to fit the image to the clothes templates, as they'd be no better than the freebies. I made my own boots which are part painted, part prim - they work fine for me but I don't sell them as other people might have problems getting the prim parts to fit them properly

It's not very frightening but it's freaky. Yellow hooded catsuit with mask, accessories made from junk.

I've stuck with system skirts mostly. If you use a modified shape with them they look fine.The first two pics use the modified shape, the last one is my normal shape - for comparison - they are all system dresses.

I still make do with mostly system clothes, with just prim accessories. I was at an event the other day and my avatar render cost was 830. One person's was over 29,000.